… by the seat of my pants: Miles 474 – 564

08Jun

I love riding. I ride every time I get a chance as far and as long as I can. That’s the key phrase here … “as long as I can”. My H-D was a great bike for putting long days and many miles in the saddle. It’s not hard to enjoy a long ride when you have a seat like this:

The seat on the Ninja 1000 was a bit of a change for me:

It is really hard to compare the H-D to the Ninja because they are such different bikes. However I do feel that it’s fair to make the comparison since they are both street bikes and touring oriented. The similarities pretty much end there, but the overall mission for these bikes has the same roots. With that in mind I expected the Ninja’s seat to be softer and able to at least allow me to stay on the bike through a tank of gas. Unfortunately, at this point I can’t. I can do about an hour and then I need to take a brake, stretch and then I’m good to go. I never had delusions that the Ninja’s seat would anything like the couch that the H-D’s seat is, I did expect it to be a little more pliant. To be fair my backend has been babied by the H-D, so maybe it’s a combination of breaking in the Ninja’s seat and getting my rear toughened up. It’s still early in our riding relationship. I do hope that it get’s better because I think this is a terrific bike and I want to be able to ride the pants off it … just not the other way around.

Keeping the faith of fanatics who feel fired up for anything motorcycles. It’s all about the journey and the philosophy of riding on two wheels. Let’s bring alive the truly unique culture of motorcycling and never let the ride leave the fibers of our being.